An earring finding is the piece between the attachment to the user's ear and the decorative part of an earring. A pierced ear earring finding may comprise a loop of wire or a post, either of which passes through the hole in the user's earlobe. An unpierced earring finding usually comprises a screw clamp or a spring clamp which grasps the user's earlobe. Virtually all earrings are manufactured by attaching the decorative portion of the earring to a finding.
In manufacturing inexpensive earrings it is important that neither great effort nor expensive materials be used to attach the decorative part to the finding. It is known to use adhesive for this purpose.
One successful technique that is known is to use a finding that includes a circular metal disc connected to the post, clamp or other attachment to the user's ear and to mount the decorative part of the earring to the metal disc with adhesive. A particularly useful version of this technique employs a circular pad having adhesive on both sides but having the adhesive covered with a strippable membrane. The decorative part of an earring can then be mounted to a finding by first stripping the membrane from one side of the pad and adhesively fixing the pad to the finding disc and then stripping the membrane from the other side of the pad and adhesively fixing the decorative part of the earring to that side.
A problem with this technique is that it is difficult and time consuming for an assembler to place an adhesive covered circular pad on a circular disc so that the circumferences of the pad and the disc coincide. It is also very difficult and time consuming, and sometimes even impossible, to adjust the position of a pad that is inaccurately mounted on a disc with the circumferences of the pad and the disc out of register. When the pad and disc circumferences do not coincide the decorative part of the earring may not be mounted securely in its desired position and the portions of the disc and pad that are out of register expose adhesive which may stick to a user's hair or cause an allergic reaction by coming in contact with a user's skin.